Well Hello, Again
Feb. 24th, 2009 11:27 pmWell it's been a while. Since the last time I journalized, we got a new president. We've decided to spend nearly $800 Billion and lost about 50% of our stock market value!
★ Back on January 25th, the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh, my iMac decided to take a big dirt nap. After taking the machine to the Apple Genius who said the hard drive had gone ka-blooey. After a week of trying to recover files unsuccessfully and finding out that getting a professional to do it would start at $400, I gave up on it and decided that it was time to just let go.
The iMac was just under warranty - by about a week. Thankfully.
After getting my iMac back from Apple with a fresh, empty hard drive. for the last few weeks I have been trying to piece together files from old computers, and few ancient back-ups and whatever I could find. Everyday I seem to find that I'm missing an application. Today I just re-downloaded XJournal.
Apple was nice enough to allow me to re-download countless songs that I have downloaded from them over the last 5 years, but they didn't have every song I've ever downloaded. There's gaps in my photos, especially things that happened in the last year. Bye-bye New York.
The music files are all over the place, and last year I was working on ripping all of my CD's into iTunes, and well, I have a new goal for 2009.
★ While getting my digital life back together I've been using Twitter more for little everyday kinda notes and posts. It's fun, actually. It's a challenge for me, trying to get a whole thought into 140 characters. I'm so long winded. I'm still on the fence about Facebook.
★ Otherwise, the other night I went to a party. Parties and I don't go together really well, but I did OK. This was a Mardi Gras themed party and there was plenty of Jelloshots and all. There were some good people there, many more I would like to talk to, but there were some really crazy people there. Naturally that put me sitting in a corner, watching the strangeness for most of the night. *sigh*
I'd just like to take some of them away from the party and have a nice chat with them over dinner...or take everyone over to Josh's (
joshjeffcoat) and watch really bad kung fu movies (Shout out to Tae-Bo master Billy Blanks, the villain in 1991's classic "King of All Kickboxers").
★ Work has been, stressful. On one side you have fearful investors needing information and guidance and on the other side you have management that is very concerned about bringing more dollars through the door. On top of that you have a market that continues to go down and down and down. You never know what the mindset of the next call will be. I've had people yelling at me, people crying and people hoping that you have the answer for them. It can be very trying.
I worry that I don't give out the right information - not only for the financial liability for the person on the other line, but also for my own job. In these time you hear about more and more people in finance getting laid off (though never the ones that should be, like many bank CEO's). Being a recent hire, now with the company a year, it's always in the back of your head.
Bonuses in the financial industry have been getting a lot of talk lately. I am eligible for one if my scores are good for this year. Most of it is based on phone stats and quality of service, but there's one other part, one that's going to be tough. It's the sales part. We aren't gaged by the products we sell or the investments we suggest for people, but strictly by the amount of dollars. It's good because we aren't told what to sell, but encouraged to find what best suited for the.
The difficulty though, especially for a non-sales guy like myself is that I'm expected to pull in $2.2 million. It's pretty daunting. Last year very few people passed 1 Million, so I don't know how well we'll do, especially as the market will likely stay down. Hopefully I'll do well enough to stay in good graces, but I'd guess I won't see a bonus this year unless I find some rich sugar daddy.
Of course, one should always be looking for a rich sugar daddy.
★ Otherwise I seem to like the new President. He's doing alright so far.
★ Back on January 25th, the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh, my iMac decided to take a big dirt nap. After taking the machine to the Apple Genius who said the hard drive had gone ka-blooey. After a week of trying to recover files unsuccessfully and finding out that getting a professional to do it would start at $400, I gave up on it and decided that it was time to just let go.
The iMac was just under warranty - by about a week. Thankfully.
After getting my iMac back from Apple with a fresh, empty hard drive. for the last few weeks I have been trying to piece together files from old computers, and few ancient back-ups and whatever I could find. Everyday I seem to find that I'm missing an application. Today I just re-downloaded XJournal.
Apple was nice enough to allow me to re-download countless songs that I have downloaded from them over the last 5 years, but they didn't have every song I've ever downloaded. There's gaps in my photos, especially things that happened in the last year. Bye-bye New York.
The music files are all over the place, and last year I was working on ripping all of my CD's into iTunes, and well, I have a new goal for 2009.
★ While getting my digital life back together I've been using Twitter more for little everyday kinda notes and posts. It's fun, actually. It's a challenge for me, trying to get a whole thought into 140 characters. I'm so long winded. I'm still on the fence about Facebook.
★ Otherwise, the other night I went to a party. Parties and I don't go together really well, but I did OK. This was a Mardi Gras themed party and there was plenty of Jelloshots and all. There were some good people there, many more I would like to talk to, but there were some really crazy people there. Naturally that put me sitting in a corner, watching the strangeness for most of the night. *sigh*
I'd just like to take some of them away from the party and have a nice chat with them over dinner...or take everyone over to Josh's (
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
★ Work has been, stressful. On one side you have fearful investors needing information and guidance and on the other side you have management that is very concerned about bringing more dollars through the door. On top of that you have a market that continues to go down and down and down. You never know what the mindset of the next call will be. I've had people yelling at me, people crying and people hoping that you have the answer for them. It can be very trying.
I worry that I don't give out the right information - not only for the financial liability for the person on the other line, but also for my own job. In these time you hear about more and more people in finance getting laid off (though never the ones that should be, like many bank CEO's). Being a recent hire, now with the company a year, it's always in the back of your head.
Bonuses in the financial industry have been getting a lot of talk lately. I am eligible for one if my scores are good for this year. Most of it is based on phone stats and quality of service, but there's one other part, one that's going to be tough. It's the sales part. We aren't gaged by the products we sell or the investments we suggest for people, but strictly by the amount of dollars. It's good because we aren't told what to sell, but encouraged to find what best suited for the.
The difficulty though, especially for a non-sales guy like myself is that I'm expected to pull in $2.2 million. It's pretty daunting. Last year very few people passed 1 Million, so I don't know how well we'll do, especially as the market will likely stay down. Hopefully I'll do well enough to stay in good graces, but I'd guess I won't see a bonus this year unless I find some rich sugar daddy.
Of course, one should always be looking for a rich sugar daddy.
★ Otherwise I seem to like the new President. He's doing alright so far.